Erin Evans - The God Catcher

"Nestrix," Tennora hissed. She couldn't let the panel fall, and she couldn't lever it up against the other side without chancing engaging the mechanism beneath. She glanced behind her. Nestrix stood before a display of brooches, making a face.

Tennora called her twice more before Nestrix looked up.

"We have to lift both sides of this." She shifted her weight enough to kick the open kit toward Nestrix. "Give me a hand."

Nestrix kneeled down beside her and picked out another stiff, tapered rod, a little slimmer than Tennora's. "Did you see those brooches?" she whispered.

"No," Tennora said. "Tell me later. I can't hold this up forever."

Nestrix harrumphed and slid around to the other side of the board. Tennora lowered her side-very slowly, very slightly-until Nestrix could jam the second wedge into the gap.

"Lift slowly," Tennora warned. Together they moved the panel out of its spot, until the bottom showed over the floor's surface.

Tennora tugged upward slightly-it was still attached to the trap beneath.

"Hrast," she swore under her breath. Without heavier pry bars, they wouldn't be able to remove it. She didn't dare let it drop back down-it would surely trip the mechanism. If they could only hold it there…

"Wait," Tennora said, eyeing the shape of the hole. "Hold it there." She pressed her thumb to one corner and pushed toward the side so that the panel turned around its center. The mechanism beneath squealed slightly, but it did not trip.

And the panel sat, balanced on its corners, stable and unmoving.

The door beyond was warded-as heavily as Tennora had expected and then some. She traced the pattern of the spell with her mind's eye. A complex, knotty ward. An alarm combined with a nasty and explosive burst of acid. And something else… though what wasn't clear. Just the fact that the spell veered ever so slightly into the frayed remnants of the Weave in a direction she didn't expect.

"This is going to take me a while," she whispered. "Look around and make certain we're alone."

Tennora felt her way through the first of the spell's defenses, smooth threads of magic retwined into a neat web. No matter what Master Halnian said, Tennora knew she was more than a mere dabbler. She sensed the effort in the spell, the care with which its caster had brought the broken magic together. She sensed the fragile points, the joining of one bit to the next-and with her own whispered spells, she teased loose the connections. First the alarms unhooked bit by bit. Sparks of green light spat and nipped her fingertips.

The trap was more complicated-the magic knotted and snarled around more compact spells. The shop, the treasures, the sound of Nestrix's footfalls as she paced the shop floor-all vanished in Tennora's mind, replaced by the spell that sang with the dirge of the dead goddess.

And for a moment, that song was Tennora. She smiled.

The spell shimmered and came undone. Tennora opened the door.

"Nestrix," she said. "We're in."

Gold, platinum, gems-the room beyond was no larger than Tennora's apartment, but shimmering treasures draped every inch. A shelf ran along three walls, heaped with sealed parchment and elaborately stamped books. There was a table in the center of the room, noticeable only for the regular shape of the pile in the middle.

Nestrix's eyes roamed the vault with unbridled greed. If she'd started salivating, Tennora wouldn't have been surprised. Falling to one knee, Nestrix ran a light hand over the glittering scales of a platinum-plated mermaid, entwined around a silver column.

"This one," she murmured. "I want this one."

"No," Tennora said. "We're looking for a mask, Aundra said."

"We could take this too. No one said only take the mask."

" I said it. We're not thieves."

"Of course. We're just people who take things but not other things," Nestrix said, but left the statue to search the piles of treasure for Aundra's mask.

Tennora shoved aside a stack of gold chains and a pile of rubies. What had Aundra said? A gold-feathered mask in a case.

"Don't you think this is peculiar?" Nestrix said.

"Later," Tennora said.

A moment later, Nestrix spoke again. "We should find the mask and get out."

Tennora fought the urge to snap at her. Hadn't she said that already? Of course, Nestrix didn't listen to anyone but Nestrix.

"You're right," she said. "Keep looking."

"We're not…" Nestrix started to say, but broke off with a frown at a pile of books and another of her distant stares.

The case lay beneath a bolt of silk and a shield emblazoned with a rearing griffon. It was flat, hardly thicker than her wrist, and made of a heavily waxed wood without any ornament. Tennora nearly discounted it out of hand, but not wanting to leave any stone unturned, she opened the case.

Nestled against a layer of watered silk lay the mask.

It was shaped like the face of a woman with full lips and a tapered chin. But instead of a smooth plane of skin, delicate feathers sculpted by a master's hand layered her cheeks and forehead. Tennora lifted it from the case. It was heavier than it looked, and as her hands closed on the mask she felt the trill of enchantment.

Tennora laid the mask back in the case and snapped it shut. "I have it," she said to Nestrix.

"Hsst!" Nestrix stood stock still, staring at the door like a dog that has sensed a robber's movement beyond. Tennora held perfectly still, listening for the sound that disturbed Nestrix's happy looting.

Nothing.

Nestrix made a sharp gesture for Tennora to get behind her. Tennora drew a pair of carvestars and held one ready to throw.

Still nothing.

"Come on," Nestrix murmured. She crept toward the door.

The shop beyond was silent as the grave.

They stood there, quiet and searching the gloom. Nothing but the shapes of the cabinets and cases. Not a sound but their own breath.

Nestrix eased out of the doorway, step by careful step. Tennora followed, careful to shift her weight gently across the floorboards.

A pale but steady light suddenly illumined the room from the far comer.

The silhouettes of four people stood out against the faint light, the edges of their weapons reflecting glimmers.

The light grew brighter, revealing two men carrying short axes and a woman with a sling. The man farthest away-the owner, by his well-cut suit and expensive gloves-held two knives so sharp they could have cut Tennora's gasp to ribbons.

"Well, well, well," he said. "What a pretty pair of thieves. You picked the wrong shop to break into, my little magpies."

"Run," Nestrix growled, and shoved Tennora away from the treasure room. She stumbled and scrambled toward the door.

Out of the darkness, a knife flew across Tennora's path-just inches from her throat. Blind instinct seized her, and Tennora twisted away from the blade, falling back to the ground behind a display of tarnished silver. She landed hard on one hip and glanced up at the knife, quivering in the framework of a cabinet.

Nestrix still stood a few steps from the treasure room. Between the tables and cabinets, Tennora could make out three of the men advancing. She pulled herself to her knees and over the top of the silver display, readied her carvestar in a shaking hand.

Just as Nestrix's dragonfear flooded the room.

Later, Tennora would wonder what had made the difference-before, had the dragonfear been an accident of Nestrix's mood? Had she really been angry? Had she ever been angry before that night in the antiquary's shop?

For out of nothing, terror wrapped an icy hand around Tennora's heart and she knew by the way the men froze stiff that it had them as well. She risked a glance at Nestrix. She had drawn herself up like a striking serpent. Her fingernails seemed sharp as blades, her bared teeth iron, her dark hair violent whips. Tennora shook to the core of her heart, watching as something terrible climbed out of her friend's skin-something that looked and sounded like Nestrix and not at all like Nestrix. Something that thundered and wailed like a windstorm with its very presence, and screamed for all of their blood.